


The Volunteer

by maximumsuckage



Category: Original Work
Genre: Hospitals, getting those medical hours in, volunteering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-06
Updated: 2018-04-06
Packaged: 2019-04-19 01:34:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14226228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maximumsuckage/pseuds/maximumsuckage
Summary: Everything is normal.  There is nothing going on here.





	The Volunteer

I cringe at the jarring ring of the phone.  It’s still twenty minutes to closing, so I have no excuse not to answer it, but my book is nearing the climax.  Placing the bookmark physically pains me, but I manage it and pick up the phone.  “Hello, you’ve reached the volunteer office.  What can I do for you?”

 “Hi, yes, can you send somebody to bring up a package from distribution?”  The voice is loud and breathy, like she’s holding her end too close to her mouth. 

“Of course!”  My voice is falsely cheery as I get the room number from her and hang up.  Only then do I slump in the chair.  Distribution.  Yay.  Luckily, in such a big hospital, it’s a long walk, and it should take me to the end of my shift to get it done.  Then, finally, I lock up and finish my book in privacy.

The basement is cold, so I shrug on my jacket as I start the hike towards the stairwell.  The security guard glances at the ID badge bouncing against my chest and nods me through the lobby.  This guard is new- I’ve been here long enough that most of the older ones recognize me, the volunteer trotting around running errands in exchange for medical hours and essay fodder for med school applications.

A few visitors are puzzling around the elevators, which are apparently not working again.  I bypass them and head for the stairwell.

Unconnected to the air conditioning, the stairs are hot.  A few beads of sweat dampen my hairline, and I regret bringing my coat, as the temperature only increases the lower you go.  Worn red paint chips off the stairs with my sneakers, their footsteps echoing up and down the stairwell a thousand times.

I pause at the basement, hand on the door knob.  The stairs continue downwards from this point, into the darkness of the uninhabited subterranean level.  I’d run all the way to the bottom once, curious about what was down there, only to find a locked door.  The narrow window with its crosshatched wires revealed nothing about what lay beyond, but the sound of mechanical movements leaked from the crack beneath the door and the chipped-paint floor.  It was nothing more than machinery, the guts of the hospital, those metal organs that chugged on alone in the endless basement night. 

I hadn’t lingered at the door.  I don’t really care about machines. 

Today, however, I don’t run down to the locked door, but step out onto the basement hall, tugging my coat closer around me as the chill of the air conditioning leeches through my skin. 

The brightly lit, long hallways loop past several offices, past walls interspersed with fading paintings of long-dead doctors.  Their wise old eyes are meant to make patients feel more at ease when they come downstairs for radiation treatments or X-rays.  I skip these in favor of the staff shortcut.  It’s a stark tunnel, past unfinished walls where exposed pipes and vessels hiss and groan. 

Down here, past staff lockers plastered with graffiti and broom closets forevermore locked due to lost keys, is the morgue.  Most of the time, the door is closed, and I dart past and pretend that I don’t know it exists.  Sometimes, when med students or doctors are working, the door is wedged open and the heavy stink of formaldehyde lingers in your nose the rest of the day.  Today, despite it being a slow Sunday afternoon, the heavy door is swung open, and nothing hides the sterile lab or the endless rows of refrigeration.  My nose wrinkles at the chemicals hanging on the air. 

“Hey, how’s it going?”  A janitor looks up at me from where he mops the floor within, splashing bleach across a suspiciously dark puddle.

He is a friendly face I commonly see around the hospital, though I don’t know his name.  The ID badge hooked to his belt is always flipped backwards; all I can see is the default list of emergency code colors.  Though my heart pounds at the thought of corpses in those rows of cold steel coffins, I lean nonchalantly in the door of the morgue and shoot him a smile.  “Homework, like always.  How ‘bout you?”

He just gestures wordlessly with his mop.  The puddle is still large enough to be considered a lake, and even in the parts he had mopped, suspicious stains mar the tiled floor.  It’ll take a half hour at least to return it to sterile white.  “Same as always.  I’m stuck mopping these halls forever.”

“I feel that.  Good luck.”  Giving him a little wave, I continue down the hall to distribution, shivering at the chilliness of the basement.  The door to the mini-warehouse is open, though on the quiet Sunday afternoon, nobody sits at the desk.  There’s a bell though- I ring it once, and then twice, and when still nobody comes, I simply walk into the room.  There are several packages on one of the tables, yet to be sorted.  Maybe one of them is for me to take?

It’s a large room, and shelves of sorted packages and mail stretch for ages.  The only light is the one next to the door that I came in.  The rest of the cavernous space is smothered in shadows.  Pop music plays quietly from a laptop on the desk, speaker crackling every few beats.  Somewhere, deeper within, I hear footsteps, so I head that way.  “Hello?  I’m here to pick up a package for ward Six-F?”

“Oh, sorry.”  The man on shift pokes his head out from the shelves on the opposite side of the room.  “I missed the bell.  I’ve got the package over here.  Slow day, huh?”

I follow him, glancing back towards the footsteps.  A shadow shifts behind rows of packages.  It’d probably be easier for the other guy to turn on a light on that side of the room, but hey, if he likes working in the dark, more power to him.

I sign off on the package, and then stride back down the hall.  “Running errands forever,” I call as I approach the morgue, but to my surprise, the door is closed and locked.  The janitor had cleaned up faster than I gave him credit for.  Shrugging, I continue by, back to the elevators. 

They’re moving again, but they’re all on higher floors, so I take the stairs, immediately starting to sweat in my coat as I jog upwards, around and around.  Stairs here go on forever, no change, no variation.  I’d had a nightmare about them once, where no matter how high I climbed I could never find the door leading back to the main floors of the hospital.  I’d woken up in a cold sweat.

This is real life though, and, panting like I’d run a marathon, I stop on the sixth floor.   I don’t know what they treat here, but I knew where the nurse’s station is.  That’s the important part.

“Excuse me?”  There’s an elderly woman sitting in a bed in one of the rooms, propped on pillows, too frail to even move her hand to flag me down.  Her eyes are squinty as she peers into the hall.

“Yes?”  I stop politely.  I’m not allowed to do anything for the patients, but I can get a nurse to help her. 

“Could you get me some water, sweetheart?”

“Yeah, of course.  I’ll send someone over.”  I smile brightly at her, and then head down to the nurse’s station to drop the package.  “Oh, and the lady in Room 6 is looking for water.”

The nurses exchange a look, then nod at me.  When I walk by the room again, it’s empty.  That’s a lapse on the nurses’ parts.  Patients shouldn’t be allowed to wander.

**Author's Note:**

> I like to think I'm clever.


End file.
